The main driver for the project was a determination to take a gallery with a nondescript storefront and relocate it to a prominent corner in an up and coming resurgence neighborhood.

The interior layout of the Silver Eye Center for Photography takes advantage of strong view corridors down Penn Avenue and S. Mathilda Street. The plan situates a bookstore on the corner and turns the interior gallery outward to the sidewalk viewer, creating a "high visibility" node and conversation with the surrounding street grid.